It’s an unfamiliar place the walls are bare and colorless. Moonlight streams through the window casting shadows.  I am exhausted from days and weeks without rest.  Sleep grabs at me pulling me into its peaceful promises. The first dreams are dark and distant: places I’ve never been or seen. There is a cold so fearce it pierces through my body and I feel it in my veins. I am alone. I am shivering. I look around for a sign of life but it is not there. I cry out and am shocked by the clarity of my own scream. I begin to walk through the barren land searching for something, anything that has life. I needed a sign that there was something out there, a sign that I was not alone. My steps are cautious, twigs and leaves are everywhere. The only sound traveling through the air is that of them breaking beneath the weight of my feet. My pace increases as panic begins to grasp at my mind. Where am I? Why is there nothing, no birds, crickets, squirrels, frogs, people? I am alone, truly alone.  I am running now, through the trees and brush. My breathing is short and shallow, I begin to gasp as there doesn’t seem to be enough air for my lungs, my cheeks are stinging as tears stream down my face. I am falling before I realize what has happened.
   There is darkness everywhere. I am falling, my heart is racing, I can feel it beating out of my chest. I reach out to grab onto something but there is nothing. I am just falling. My body feels like it did riding the graviton as teenager many years ago. My mind is attempting to understand what is happening all it is sure of is that I am falling fast and I can’t see anything.

I inhale deeply, the shadows are still on the wall cast by the moonlight. It was another dream. Why can I not drift off into the bliss of the peaceful promises? Gone are the days when my dreams were kind and full of joy and happiness. I  stare off desperately wanting to return to sleep but fearful of what movie my mind will play next. I do my best to think of pleasant things. The ocean at sunset, a fawn lying in a meadow, children laughing. I begin to fade, the room transforms as I allow myself to fade into sleep. I roll over and am floating in the space between reality and dreams.

It is then that he is there. I feel everything as though time has not passed and the nightmares never began. The bed shifts and creaks beneath his weight. He embraces me as he enters pulling me into him. I can smell his skin and feel the warmth and comfort of his arms around me. I say his name low and breathy “Jeremy.” He hugs me tighter,  nuzzles my head and says “it is okay”. I am overflowing with feelings of joy, comfort, and warmth. It is this state of peace that allows me to begin falling asleep.  Before I am encompassed I say “Jeremy, I love you” in a voice so small and distant I am not sure if anyone could hear me. I am so completely comforted by his presence.  In a moment I am gone my mind creating vivid and wild dreams. It is as though the past eighteen months are playing on the big screen but with the added flare only a dream can give.  When I awake in the morning, the room is still unfamiliar, the walls still bare but,  I feel an odd peace. Whatever one might call it, it was real. I am certain of one thing: know no matter what I do, where I go, or who I am with, he is with me always.